Little Cloud
by shan14
Summary: Little Cloud is searching, for sign of something stirring, in the hearts of those below and they all sleep.
1. Mike

_Little cloud is searching_

_For sign of something stirring_

_In the hearts of those below_

_And they all sleep_

White, puffy, cotton candy clouds had drifted endlessly across the pale blue sky that afternoon.

Crickets chirped incessantly as the sun descended towards the hills in the distance and the first signs of nightfall edged themselves into the consciousness of the small children laughing in the street.

Two brown haired boys and a blonde haired girl played happily, throwing a ball across the grass. One had wanted to play soccer, another football, another netball; yet a compromise had been reached at halfway and no one could remember the fight from earlier.

"Dinner" called their mother, her red dress swishing around her knees as her golden earrings reflected the escaping sunlight across their faces.

_Civic pride an honour_

_To raise a son and daughter_

_Sta__ked out and all made clear who got here first_

"Be good" she told them, kissing each child firmly on the forehead, red lipstick marking them as perfume filled their senses.

The eldest, brown hair damp from a shower, grinned at his younger siblings while pulling a face reminiscent of their mother.

The others giggled lightly at their elder brother; flannelette pyjama's buttoned crookedly while sticky hands covered their mouth to muffle the laughs.

"Listen to the babysitter" instructed their father and each child fell silent, eyeing the formerly dressed man in wonder and fear.

"Yes daddy" they chorused together, each captivated by the bright medals gleaming against his white uniform.

"Goodnight children" their parents called, walking quickly out the front door and down the stairs, heels clicking against the pavement before the car roared to life and departed the drive way.

_Ah honey can I hold you_

_And play rewind in my head_

_I don't know my people anymore_

_Can I stay with you instead?_

**Fire!**

**Deep breaths, in and out, in and out**

**A voice far in the distance, muffled through a haze of choking smoke**

**Screams everywhere**

**Sirens wailing**

**Burning feet and hands **

**A jammed door, not that way, this way**

**Quickly! Run!**

**Can't breath**

**One more breathe through aching lungs**

**Please don't let me die god, please!**

**Fire**

_Picture a little boy__ lying under his bed_

_His brothers playing outside in the dirt_

_And the fence it shimmers in the heat_

_Like it wants to disappear_

Their father often watched his children play

He spent so much time away from his family; instead his life was the sea.

Yet how he wished sometimes that was not the case and he could watch them grow

His gorgeous daughter, all the innocence of a three year old and the maturity of an adult

She was his princess, his meaning, his miracle.

She wasn't supposed to be alive, that's what they had been told.

How she had proved them wrong.

His middle child; a boy

Endless energy and always bouncing for adventure

He wished he could be the one taking him fishing and playing in the dirt.

But, alas, he could not

Finally, his eldest; another boy.

He was quieter than the others, happy to play his sports and eager for fun

But able to sit for hours with a book

Or hide under his bed making up stories with dragon and dinosaurs and heroic saviours with swords and battle ships.

The least like his father in so many ways

_Little cloud is creeping_

_Across the city sleeping_

_Who below would try and wake from a bad dream?_

**Fire!**

**He can't see anything**

**It's so hot, so smoky**

**So hard to breathe**

'**No more' he whispers, collapsing to the floor**

**He hears a scream**

**His little sister**

**So young she is**

**His father's words echo in his head**

**You are the eldest**

**You are responsible**

**He's crying with pain and heat and smoke**

**He wants it to disappear**

**Now!**

**But his sister, she's so little**

**One shaky step, across the bright red room**

**Almost there**

**Another scream and he is lifted by invisible arms**

**He kicks hard; tries to break away**

**Down the burning hallway to his poor little sister**

**No, not the front door**

**Please, she's so little he cries**

**But he can do nothing**

**He can hardly breathe and everything hurts**

**Fire!**

_I woke early, what did I see_

_But a clear sky, a clear sky_

_Looked out my window and what did I see_

_But a clear sky in paradise_

He still remembers that day, the fire and how it burned.

Not just the house and not just his hands and feet

But his family

A poor little broken family

20 years on and the pain is still fresh

_Picture a little boy lying under his bed_

_His brother playing outside in the dirt_

_And the fence it shimmers in the heat_

_Like it wants to disappear_

He can remember that afternoon, lying under his bed to escape the stifling heat

His little brother played outside in the dirt, his screams filling the backyard as he discovered a new worm for his collection

His mother sat in the yard behind him, following the shade while his little sister sat curled in her lap.

His father was not home, would not be until that night when he was going to dinner with their mother.

He'd joined them in the backyard, laughing gaily without a care in the world.

The Flynn children they were.

That night when the fire had started, the babysitter had not known what to do.

She had tried, god knows she had tried

But it had eaten half the house by the time she had woken.

Their was no hope, no hope for all the children

No hope for the family afterwards as the huddled by the stream, watching the priest in the afternoon sun.

They hadn't last long after that

His mother was in a daze

His father was a broken man

His little brother didn't understand

But he did.

It was his responsibility, and he had let everyone down.

He could see it in his father's eyes,

The man couldn't even look at him!

He'd destroyed his own family

That morning as he lay in the hospital, bandages wrapped tightly around his small frame, four words had been muttered to him.

"Daddy, where's Ashley?" he had asked through tears and pain and his father, taught with grief had answered as truthfully as he could, unaware of the damage he would cause his young son; only aware of his own aching heart and the void that had been created by the flames.

"She's dead Michael"

_Picture his momma, little girl on her knee_

_Following a piece of shade under a tree_

_And the fence it shimmers in the heat_

_Like it wants to disappear_


	2. Kate

_She doesn't look_

_She doesn't see_

_Opens up for nobody_

_Figures out, she figures out  
_

For an 11 year old she was quiet

Too quiet they would say as she sat reading by the window

Ignoring their comments as they sat baffled

She wouldn't talk to others

Though they put that down to a change in accent

She didn't play outside

Though they said it was a change of climate

They knew so little, those doctors

No on believed she had figured it out,

If they themselves even had

_Narrow lines, she can't decide_

_Everything short of suicide_

_Never hurts_

_Nearly works  
_

She'd seen the marks on the person she knew so well

The subtle change from patchworks of purple and blue

To streaks of angry red across the wrinkling wrist

One by him

The other by her mother

She didn't understand, the others had come and gone

Some were nice, some where not

But none of the other men had ever laid a hand on her mother

She'd been scared at first

So scared that next time he would hit to hard

Or the lines would stick and indirectly he would kill her

Next time it might be her, not her mother, he came after.

_Something scratched its way out_

_Something you want to forget about  
_

So far she was safe

He had no interest in a quiet, British 11 year old

To busy reading to notice the abuse

He liked it that way, her innocence

Like the others he failed to realise she knew it all  
worse she knew what it was doing to her mother

That the end was near

He realised though

One day

June

It was cloudy

The first winter rains falling across the barren earth

_Part of you _

_That will never show_

_You're the only one _

_That'll ever know  
_

**Strike One:**

**She's yelling**

**Mouth without a mind**

**Leap without a thought**

**She's yelling at him to stop like her life depends on it**

**And someone's does**

**Suddenly a red face is above her**

**Boiling with rage as purple veins threaten to pop at the end of his pointed little nose**

"**What'd you say?" he spits before the backhand comes flying**

**Red, wrinkled skin coming into contact with soft, pale flesh**

**It burns, hisses with pain as she cries out**

**Tumbling towards the tiles with force, tears running down a purple stained face**

**Clutching her cheek in terror and pain and surprise and terror all over again**

**Next to the sobering woman **

**Nothing happens  
**

_Take it back to when it all began_

_Take your time would you understand _

_What it's all about_

_What it's all about  
_

**Strike two:**

**He stumbles down the hallway**

**Stinking of sweat and smoke and booze**

**Ladies as well**

"**Where are ya?" he screams and they huddle closer together**

**Mother and daughter**

**United at last**

**She struggles out of a firm grasp**

**Braving the wall of terror **

**Finding strength in the fact her mother is on her side **

**It's the first time in her life that has happened**

**She choses to ignore that the woman doesn't stop her from facing him**

"**You" he screams before she can get in a word**

"**You!" is all she hears as she is shoved against the wall**

**Her whole young, innocent self shaking with pain and terror**

**Not surprise though, she's past that**

**He's laughing she realises with disgust as fairy's dance past her eyes and she falls to the ground**

**Barley holding consciousness as the pain gets worse, vibrating up her arm, taking her over, blanking out her mind so all she can feel is terror and horrible, Aching **

**Nothingness**

**The laughter is changing**

**Becoming softer, more choking**

**He's crying she realises with disgust**

**Crying that he's sorry towards her little, battered frame**

**Her little, battered mother**

**He's saying he's sorry and she's shaking her head, slinking towards the stairs before turning and running**

**Hiding beneath the covers her father sent from England, lighter so she would not grow hot in the Australian summer nights**

**Nothing happens  
**

_Something scratched its way out_

_Something you want to forget about_

_No one expects you to get out_

_All on your own with no one around  
_

**Strike Three:**

**Its early morning now**

**She wakes with a choking start**

**Spluttering and breathing heavily after the dream that had met her earlier**

**Yet, it hadn't been a dream she realises as she fingers the angry, blistering bruise against her cheek**

"**No" she whispers, curling in a ball, rocking backwards and forwards in tears**

**Tears of pain and terror and realisation**

**How long had her mother endured this?**

**They're fighting down stairs**

**Big, angry words of rage are being thrown back and forth **

**Her name is mentioned and she slinks down the stairs**

**Hiding behind the wall **

**Suddenly words aren't the only thing being thrown and her mother hits the floor**

**A deafening thud and crack that can't be natural **

"**No" she screams in a moment of blind horror**

**Running towards the figure standing over the bleeding woman**

**She runs at him with all her force, barrelling into his side **

**She falls to the floor, her shoulder still blaring at her from yesterday**

**He's laughing again,**

**The sound ringing in her ears like bells, filling her senses as she's lifted easily from the ground, arms of booze swaying her form side to side**

**Shaking her, almost dropping her, shaking her**

**Suddenly she hits the floor and knows that she can't hold on any longer**

**She's too far beyond tears to stop**

**To far beyond pain to feel anything except numbness**

**To exposed to the world to be the innocent 11 year old the doctors told of**

**She can smell sickening alcohol**

**Can feel nothing but numb and aching pain**

**Can hear nothing but his laughing cries of anguish as he collapses against the broken pair**

**Saying he's sorry**

**And**

**As the world around her blacks out finally **

**She can almost hear the sirens coming to her rescue**

**Though whether they will reach her in time**

**She does not know  
**

_Something scratched its way out_

_Something you want to forget about  
_

She wasn't supposed to survive

Neither was her mother

Not in that house

All on their own with him

Her own with him

Yet, despite it she had felt something that had never been present before

And unity between both her and her mother

Something so strong

Something which carried them away to survival

She can't move her right side; the soft hospital bed is squished against her

Everything still hurts but it's a dull, medicated ache compared to her mind and soul

Nothing will replace that face

Above her

Above her mother

A face ready to kill with anger and passion and alcohol

But, she reminds herself, she survived

No

They survived

And maybe from now the two of them will

Together

She even manages a smile

_No one expects you to get out  
_

There's a person sitting next to her

Has been all night, and day, and night

For three weeks she has stayed there

Guarding the small, blonde haired angel of a child that no one can believe survived

The angel stirs and she sits up straight, noticing the smile gracing her lips for the first time

"Good afternoon" she whispers, stroking the blonde locks affectionately.

Two little green eyes screw shut as she turns towards the voice

Praying to a God she's just getting to know that it's who she wants it to be

"Leila" she murmurs, face dropping at the site of the woman she had come to know as her confidant, her friend, her mentor

"Where's momma?" she asks, tears already threatening to spill down her innocent bruised cheeks.

"Oh Katie" is all she can say in return, brushing the child's hair away

She can't lie

Not now

Not after what's happened

"Oh Angel" she whispers, brushing a feather light kiss against the bandaged forehead

"She had to work sweetheart"

_All on your own with no one around_


End file.
